Pain aux Amandes et Croquant de Cordes: Paris Cookies I Have Loved

Yesterday’s post was for Laura but today’s post is for Louise, as she (Louise) has just touched down in the city that stole my heart. I think the Dreamworks musical Anastasia said it best:

Par-ee holds the key to your heart,
And all of Par-ee plays a part.
Just stroll two-by-two
Down what we call “la rue!”
And soon all Par-ee will be
Singing to you!
(Ooh-la-la. Ooh-la-la!
Ooh-la-laaaaa!)

Quite a long time ago, I slipped a photo of some rather delicious cookies, the Crêpes Dentelle de Quimper, into a Paris post about tears and tofu. I mentioned that while these biscuits/cookies were très bien, there were others that blew the Crêpes Dentelles out of the [delicious] water. Louise expressed interest in these tastier cookies, and as she’s now in the city where the cookies exist, I decided it was high time I followed through on my offhand comments.

Pain Aux Amandes

Tout simplement délicieux indeed!

First, the runner-up. (Let’s call the Crêpes Dentelles the second runner-up.) Slight disclaimer: I brought a packet of these cookies home for my brother, and he didn’t love them quite as much as I’d hoped. As a result, there’s a small chance that my love for these particular cookies springs from the fact that I rarely eat cookies, and so my tastebuds might’ve over-reacted to the combination of butter, flour, and sugar.

Or else I simply have a more sophisticated palate than my brother. After all, he once finished up a bowl of ice-cream at Sizzlers then immediately went back for pickled onions. (Oh, who am I kidding, I’d do the same. I love me some pickles.)

The Pain aux Amandes are made from farine de blé, sucre candi, beurre, amandes, sel, and poudre à lever, which my French language/research skills translate into flour (Camille, is this a special kind of flour?), crystallised cane sugar, butter, almonds, salt, and baking powder. Pretty simple and trustworthy set of ingredients there, particularly for store-bought cookies.

Unassuming to look at, but you know what they say about assuming.

I wasn’t expecting much when I tasted these. I wasn’t even sure why I’d bought them. But my heavens, the buttery depth! The muscovado taste of the sweet sugar! The toasted almonds! There was a depth to the flavour that mere caster sugar and melted butter surely couldn’t create in their natural state. There must have been caramelising and browning involved. Surely.

Oh, and that photo? You better believe I ate the whole contents in less than half an hour. The second time I opened a box of these was the night I met P.PersuasivePilot. Being an incredibly selfless person, I shared. And you know what? There may be nothing better than talking for hours to someone, handing over cookies at regular intervals, and having said cookies accepted by said someone at said intervals with nothing said about it. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Croquant de Cordes

If the Pain aux Amandes were natural, then these Croquant de Cordes were supernatural. Looking at the picture on the box, I expected to find basic wheat-flour thick cookies hiding inside. Oh no. No no no. These cookies were crackly wafer-thin see-through creations of roasted almond nubbins held together by shards of toffeed-caramelised-sugar-overwhelming-how-can-this-taste-so-good-heaven.

It's a little hard to tell what's going on in this photo but, as I've mentioned before, the lighting in my hostel was terrible. But look - crackly sugar toffee-like windows of wonderment!

Have you ever walked around a market where someone is making caramelised nuts in the open air? You know that heady aroma of melting, changing, darkening sugar mixed with the rich scent of roasting nuts? Imagine the epitome of that aroma, then taste it.

That’s what these cookies were to me. I refuse to tell you how many of these boxes I bought and ate in single sittings, but I can tell you that I didn’t regret a moment of doing so. Sure, there’s probably a baker out there in Paris making these fresh, but I don’t know if I’ve ever tasted more delicious cookies, packaged or not.

For the record, these are made of sugar, 20% almonds, that same flour again, and 12% egg white. Anyone up for some reverse engineering?

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

19 Responses

Ooo, so much to read (I am so far behind on your posts now…which is almost a good thing ’cause now I can procrastinate here!)! My favourite cookies/biscuits/whatever are really plain too…well, plain as in their ingredients but obviously not plain as in taste otherwise that could be boring (I’m not a cookie person…give me cake any day!).

Thanks so much Hannah, I’ll be sure to check these out very very soon. But you left out the key aspect for one tracking down biscuits in Paris- where do I buy them? Monoprix??? Am looking forward to these- I found some other treasures you would have enjoyed today, but you’ll have to wait to hear about them!

Vaala: Hurrah, you’re back! I’ve missed you 🙂 I don’t tend to think of myself as much of a cookie person either, but my next post is going to contradict that a little bit…

Lorraine: Let’s make it happen! I think it’s absolutely legitimate 😉

TheHungryScholar: Oh gosh, you just made my day. I wish!! If I had any idea how to get into the field, I’d love to… but I’ve got no idea!

Amber: Lace cookies? Hmm, I might have to do some investigating there. I would love to be able to replicate these! And I thought you only liked nut balls… 😉

Camille: Thank you for the link! It’s funny, because I’ve read the entirety of David’s archives, but I’d completely forgotten about this recipe. You’re my hero!

Louise: You’re such a tease! Making me wait (because I’ve never done anything like that, oh no…) I do apologise – yes, these are from Monoprix. If you squint really hard, you can see “Monoprix Gourmet” on the label. 🙂

Stacy: They were so amazingly good. The Croquant de Cordes, particularly!

Perry: Mmm, speculaas! I still regret forgetting to buy the Speculaas Spread I saw in Antwerp!

Ok maybe not yet (come on, funding to attend another international conference!) but eventually. I think that if I was in Paris, I would spend 95% of my time either eating or looking for things that I want to eat, which would probably be most things.

About farine de blé, that reminds me of some random thing I learnt when revising my dodgy French for when I was in Montreal for a workshop. Blé is also French slang for money, kind of like the equivalent of “dough”. I just like the idea of walking around saying “Whoa, that dude’s got plenty of wheat!”.

Success! I have a packet of all 3 types of biscuits after a Monoprix raid tonight! I was planning to open one packet tonight, but then I left the biscuit stash unguarded briefly whilst I took my evening turn about the block, and the boys opened a packet of Fauchon biscuits instead. I got a mixed assortment of theirs to try. Rather overpriced I feel. I think it was 9 euros for a pack of nicely turned out, but samey and somewhat uninspiring biscuits. It does have a version of the almond bread like ones and the crepes de Quimper, but the crepes are chocolate coated.

Jess: That’s the correct way to do Paris! 95% eating, 5% sightseeing. Believe me, that’s the fast track to ultimate happiness 🙂 Get me a ticket, too? It hurts my heart that I have no idea when I’ll go back! (I like a man with some tasty, tasty wheat.)

Amber: Spreadin’ the nut-love since 1985. 😉

Simply Life: Sure! Come over anytime!

Louise: I believe David Lebovitz put on his disapproving hat about the choc-covered crepes dentelles – so I stuck with The Original And The Best. 😀 Cannot WAIT to hear what you think of them! Honestly, I’m a bit giddy right now. Though a part of me thinks you’re going to stomp all over my positive opinions. 😀